Heinkel, Ernst Heinrich.

Heinkel, Ernst Heinrich, born 24-01-1888 in Grunsbach as the second son of the master bottle maker Karl Heinkel and his wife Katharine (born, Xander) He a spirited and ambitious boy, as a young man became an apprentice machinist at a foundry. Heinkel studied at the Technical Academy in Stuttgart, where he initially became interested in aviation through a fascination with Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin

    and in 1909 attended an international airshow in Frankfurt am Main. He determined flight was the future of transportation, and the following year, he built his first aircraft. Heinkel’s first aircraft, built in 1910, crashed and caught fire. Heinkel crashed a plane in 1911 and suffered severe injuries. In 1921, Heinkel was appointed head designer of the recently re-established Caspar-Werke, but soon left after a dispute over ownership of a design. In 1922 he established the Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke company at Warnemünde. Due to the restrictions placed on German aircraft manufacturing by the Treaty of Versailles, Heinkel looked overseas for contracts, with some seaplane designs being licence-built in Sweden and working on catapult-launched seaplanes for the Imperial Japanese Navy. He installed a similar catapult on the ocean liner Bremen for launching mail planes. After Adolf Hitler (did you know) (see Hitler parents) (see William Hitler) came to power and Hermann Goering (did you know) enlargest his Luftwaffe, designs by Heinkel’s firm formed a vital part of the Luftwaffe’s growing strength in the years leading up to the Second World War. Other aircraft designers were the Dutch Anthony Fokker, Willy Messerschmitt    and Hugo Junker. This included the Heinkel He 59, the Heinkel He 115 and the Heinkel He 111. He was designated a Wehrwirtschaftführer by the German government for his commitment to rearmament. Heinkel was passionate about high-speed flight, and was keen on exploring alternative forms of aircraft propulsion. He donated aircraft to Wernher von Braun

    who was investigating rocket propulsion for aircraft, as well as sponsoring the research of Hans Joachim von Ohain,

     Ohain died age 86, on 13-03-1998 in Melbourne, into turbojet engines, leading to the flight of the Heinkel He 178, the first aircraft to fly solely under turbojet power by Erich Warsitz on 27-08-1939. Warsitz was a test pilot and died age 76, on 12-07-1983 of a stroke, in Barbengo, Switzerland.

 After his return in 1950, thanks to Chancellor of West Germany Konrad Adenauer,      he founded his fine mechanical firm “Maschinenfabrik Hilden”, until, in 1965, he retired.

      Ernst Heinkel died age 70, on 30-01-1958 in Grunsbach and is buried with his wife Lisa Nürnberger, who died old age 90 on 04-01-1999, on the Stadtfriedhof of Grunbach.